This morning, I checked the front page and discovered that we've topped 700 members in the last few days. To our newcomers, welcome! I hope that you will take a few minutes to browse the older posts and read the guidelines on the front page. With the growing number of posts here, adherence to the guidelines is critical. The main thing is not to post quizzes, memes, petitions and things like that. There are plenty of other places on Live Journal for these things, or you can post them in your own journal. Also, watch out for off-topic posts. Sometimes these are purely accidental, or because the poster is inexperienced. But if it's off topic, we'll let you know.

There are plenty of resources here for you to utilize if you are just starting to delve into this very large and often troubling topic. Since this community was created nearly 3 years ago, many other sites addressing the topic of the hard right and dominionism have appeared. Some are thriving. Others are not, and have been retired.

One of our best resources is our Wiki. It's still pretty new, but it is growing by leaps and bounds. This is a participatory project, and if you are interested in contributing to it, please sign on, learn the ropes, and start adding to it. We already have a large collection of websites, books, movies, and biographies of various players in the religious right, as well as pages and articles about allies who are battling them. Knowledge is power, and the wiki goes beyond the limitations of this community to work as a repository for information and links.

The subject matter can be grim and frustrating at times, but to ignore it is to do so at your peril. The dominionists rely on apathy and ignorance of their real agenda to advance their cause. Lately, people are really starting to catch on, and are uncovering their vast web, and bringing them and their activities to light. More and more articles exposing their often blatant intolerance and hatred are being published in highly respected publications. People are starting to question their dominance and pushiness in the government.

This is not a Christian bashing site. There are people of many faiths, and none at all who read and post here. The main purpose of this site is education and critical examination of the political-religious hybrid that uses religion and the trust of its believers to advance a political trend. We must remember this, and welcome Christians who see the danger to their faith, and who wish to acquire the knowledge and the tools needed to reclaim their faith from the political forces. If we can enlighten, encourage and educate, we have done our job here.

ALternet has a review of the recently published "American Theocracy" book by conservative Kevin Phillips. Here's an excerpt of the interview:

Frel: You also say in your book that 40 percent of the Republican voting bloc is made up of very religious Christian denominations. Who are the other 60 percent?

Phillips: Well, we have to be careful what description we're using. For example, if you take born-agains. The percentage of born-agains in this country is something like 42 or 43 percent. With Republicans, it's 10 points higher, and with Democrats it's 10 points lower. Just a guess. I would say that 40 percent of the Republican coalition is fundamentalist evangelical and Pentecostal. Now, there would be a larger group that would be born again, who wouldn't quite consider themselves in some of these dimensions.

Frel: Where do they diverge in terms of their political interests? Do you think there's enough distance between these groups to prevent some kind of takeover? You call it the "emerging Republican theocracy" at one point in your book.

Phillips: Well, I was just on an interview with Richard Land, and we were talking about the trends and what they represented. And as more and more people, should this happen, have a sense of end times approaching because of war in the Middle East or tsunamis or plagues or AIDS or anything like this, as that happens, people are going to pay less attention to things other than salvation, and they are going to be more concerned with having a churchly government that their preachers are telling them what's happening and what to do. So that could push things a bit further in the direction of a theocratic tendency on the part of the people who are really worried about where the earth is heading and thinking about things in terms of raptures, end times and Armageddon. And it's a large group of people.

Frel: It seems to me so far that at this point, though, this group of people who have these apocalyptic fantasies have been co-opted by more sophisticated business interests and political opportunists.

Phillips: There's certainly a widely held view on the part of people who are more liberal than I am that this religious thing is probably exaggerated, and some will go so far as to say that they think George Bush is pulling a political scam and that he's using these people. I think there's some evidence that a number of the more centrist or liberal evangelicals don't like what's being done with the corporations.

Now I think you can argue fairly convincingly that a good amount of what President Bush feels on this matter is sincere; that it's admitted by everybody that in 1999 that he thought God wanted him to be president. He has this sense that he's been "chosen." So you start to wonder what role he sees himself in, and to me that's the coming together of religion and politics.

Frel: You say that the resurgence and religious fervor of the Pentecostals, fundamentalists and so on wouldn't be so extreme if they hadn't been kicked out of the public square in the in 1960s.

Phillips: I think that liberals in the '60s and '70s vastly underestimated the importance of religion to the average American. We've always been a religious country -- our bible sales have been just huge, historically. And the notion that there was a new secular era coming in which we could overlook that was a great mistake. There were attempts to get prayer out of the schools completely, take the Ten Commandments off the walls of buildings and so on. All of this mobilized millions of Americans to take up the cudgels for these religious issues.

Did anyone else catch the show on the National Geographic channel called the Gospel of Judas?

Basically, it goes like this: a gospel was found which is almost certainly a lost book of the Nag Hammadi books which told part of the Jesus/Judas story very differently, saying that Jesus asked Judas to "sacrifice" him because he was the only one who fully understood his teachings. It removes the stigma of betrayal from Judas.

One thing that really stood out to me, which was formerly kept in the circles of historians, was that the show pointed out that in the first 500 or so years of Christianity (at the least) there were many different forms of Christianity and the various Christians all followed different gospels. There were at least 30 different gospels, and only four made it into the Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), and this was intentional. The other gospels eventually were considered heretical, because they went against the version that certain church leaders wanted to promote.

The above historical facts basically prove that there is no one, right "Word of God" and there is no one, true Christianity. But, of course, historical fact, as usual, is blasphemy.

The show had more to it than what I've posted here, and I think it's worth seeing, regardless of one's faith.

I know that we have a lot of newcomers to this board, but I have noticed that the tenor of some of the more recent posts has become somewhat mean-spirited and perhaps might border on bashing. This is not acceptible, and I must remind folks here that this is not a religious bashing board. While the tactics of the more extreme believers might be difficult to fathom, it does us no favor to be calling them names. Let their own actions speak for them- don't add gasoline to the fire, please.

There are people of many faiths here- and most of the people here are Christians of one sort or another. Let's respect them. Same with the Pagans, Atheists, Buddhists, Agnostics and others who visit this board: the working word is respect.

Name calling and intolerant behavior is unacceptable here. This board should be a safe place and level playing field for all believers (and nonbelievers) to study, understand, and critically examine the Dominionist movement. We're not here to hate, bait, or debate this branch of Christianity- or Christianity in general- we're here to learn about it, talk about it, and find reasonable push back solutions to counter the growing Dominionist influence in our government.

Historical discussions are OK. Trying to drag down or dismantle Christianity as a faith is not. We're not here to debate the validity or truth of this faith- it is clear that it has withstood the various assaults of various critics for centuries, and it isn't going to crumble under our assault. It is the mix of religion and politics, of church and state, of spirituality and manipulative behavior, of power and money being cloaked under the guise of religion, that we are concerned with. The use and abuse of this faith as a political wedge and a social cudgel is the purpose of this board.

Let's remember that, and stay on topic and on track. There are many other LJ communities that invite debate, active criticism, and flame wars. This isn't one of them. Let's continue to be civil to each other and lay our differences aside and learn from each other.

Thank you. Be good to each other.

ETA: I have three co-moderators on board, too. They are seshen, rpeate, and our latest addition, wyldraven, who also hosts and administrates our Wiki.